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xPack GCC v11.5.0-1 released

· 4 min read
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)

Version 11.5.0-1 is a new release; it follows the official GNU GCC release.

The xPack GCC is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of GCC.

There are separate binaries for Windows (x64), macOS (x64, arm64) and GNU/Linux (x64, arm64 and arm).

Raspberry Pi

The main targets for the GNU/Linux Arm binaries are the Raspberry Pi class devices (armv7l and aarch64; armv6 is not supported).

caution

Recent macOS SDK (Xcode/CLT 16) introduced an incompatibility in the standard C header files and compilation ends with errors like:

.../include-fixed/stdio.h:80:14: error: expected ';' before 'extern'

The error is also encountered when running tests with GitHub Actions, since the macos runners were already upgraded to CLT 16.

Download​

The binary files are available from GitHub Releases.

Prerequisites​

  • x64 GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • arm64/arm GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • x64 Windows: Windows 7 with the Universal C Runtime (UCRT), Windows 8, Windows 10
  • x64 macOS: 10.13 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.6 or later

Install​

The easiest way to install this specific version, is by using xpm:

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/gcc@11.5.0-1.1 -verbose

Comprehensive instructions for installing xPack GCC on different platforms can be found in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

The xPack GCC generally follows the official GCC releases.

The current version is based on:

  • GCC version 11.5.0 from July 19, 2024;
  • binutils version 2.42 from Jan 29, 2024.

Supported languages​

The supported languages are:

  • C
  • C++
  • Obj-C
  • Obj-C++
  • Fortran

Note: Obj-C/C++ support is minimalistic.

Starting with 12.2.0-2, support for 32-bit multilib was added on x86 GNU/Linux; it can be enabled via the -m32 compile option.

Changes​

Compared to the upstream, there are no functional changes.

Bug fixes​

  • none

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

Please see the separate tests results page.

Documentation​

To save space and bandwidth, the original GNU GCC documentation is available online.

Build​

The binaries for all supported platforms (Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux) were built using the xPack Build Box (XBB), a set of build environments based on slightly older distributions, that should be compatible with most recent systems.

For the prerequisites and more details on the build procedure, please see the Maintainer Info page.

CI tests​

Before publishing, a set of simple tests were performed on an exhaustive set of platforms. The results are available from:

Tests​

The binaries were tested on a variety of platforms, but mainly to check the integrity of the build, not the compiler functionality.

Checksums​

The SHA-256 hashes for the files are:

61e745bc2d25c6e7695aff2052d00913977c1bfca737b8c08f62a8ddf574a434
xpack-gcc-11.5.0-1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

9c8695f6cf257932ea87fa9b395ea31d87088664a258500dc496f359e7ae8eaf
xpack-gcc-11.5.0-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz

6db6b5253cd71455f9f47b670a80e10f410cc7fcfee185e5b6772fe7da0ef2ac
xpack-gcc-11.5.0-1-linux-arm.tar.gz

f872e1f9741c93c1fbe86a38caeb192c8d80e6bbf4a3558554c66134b86d9a3b
xpack-gcc-11.5.0-1-linux-arm64.tar.gz

9c0c2c7d6c046dba991440b33bb07697a7cdc4a8d72aa5efb55d0906f8dba995
xpack-gcc-11.5.0-1-linux-x64.tar.gz

3f5f725722ee14932b01e53dc72f662eb59610302f2a0803d595f8ce41666fd8
xpack-gcc-11.5.0-1-win32-x64.zip

Deprecation notices​

GNU/Linux minimum requirements​

The minimum requirement is GLIBC 2.27, available starting with Ubuntu 18, Debian 10 and RedHat 8. Support for RedHat 7 was dropped in 2022.

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit x86 GNU/Linux and x86 Windows was dropped in 2022.

Pre-deprecation notice for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux​

Due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems, Support for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a little while, but expect it to be dropped by 2025, so it is recommended to consider an upgrade to a RPi 4 or 5 with at least 4 GB (preferably 8 GB) of RAM.

Pre-deprecation notice for Ubuntu 18.04​

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver reached the end of the standard five-year maintenance window for Long-Term Support (LTS) release on 31 May 2023.

As a courtesy, the xPack GNU/Linux releases will continue to be based on Ubuntu 18.04 for another year.

From 2025 onwards, the GNU/Linux binaries will be built on Debian 10, (GLIBC 2.28), and are also expected to run on RedHat 8.

Users are urged to update their build and test infrastructure to ensure a smooth transition to the next xPack releases.

Download analytics​

Credit to Shields IO for the badges and to Somsubhra/github-release-stats for the individual file counters.